Nominal group heads and clause structure

• Gill Francis ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Singapore, Kent Ridge
• Localización: Word: Journal of the International Linguistic Association, ISSN-e 2373-5112, ISSN 0043-7956, Vol. 42, Nº 2, 1991, págs. 145-156
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper reports the results of a study of the distribution of nominal group heads across the major elements of clause structure. The distribution of 38 head-nouns was examined, using concordanced data from the University of Birmingham's Cobuild corpora. The results lead to the following observations: i) that nominal group heads, and hence nominal groups, are unevenly distributed across grammatical categories; ii) that a head-noun tends to have a different syntagmatic environment according to the constituent it is realising; iii) that different senses of a noun display different grammatical behaviour; iv) that the syntagmatic patterns in which nominal group heads are involved tend to cut across rank boundaries; and v) that a focus on nouns as the central elements of clauses will reveal the syntagmatic restrictions on some of the most common lexico-grammatical patterns in the language.